Carers play a vital role in families and the community through supporting the needs of people with a disability, long-term health condition or the elderly. Although some care is provided by formal providers, it is often undertaken informally by friends and family of the recipient. This publication presents information about carers who provide this assistance. The assistance needs to be ongoing, or likely to be ongoing, for at least six months.

Data in this publication was collected in the 2012 Survey of Disability, Ageing and Carers (SDAC), conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) from August 2012 to March 2013. More information about this survey is available in the publication Disability, Ageing and Carers, Australia: Summary of Findings, 2012 (cat. no. 4430.0).

ROUNDING AND PERTURBATION

The random adjustment of estimates, by perturbation, for the purpose of maintaining confidentiality, may result in the sum of components not equalling the total, or subtotal. In these cases, the difference between the sum of components and the total will be small and will not impact the overall information value of the estimate for the total or any individual component. Where a footnote is not included on an estimated total, it should be assumed that any discrepancy between the total and the sum of its components is due to the effects of rounding or perturbation.